Contributions are solicited for a unique internationally, stylistically, and chronologically inclusive collection of essays on theatre about war. This is a substantially completed volume under final review at Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury that includes a thriling array of plays and contributors. A small number of additional essays are desired to fill out the volume with particular interest in classical as well as recent plays of any period or nationality. Inquiries and abstracts are welcome.

Papers will consider how American theatre and drama of any period addresses empathy as part of the human experience. What notions of empathy are sedimented into traditional form(s) and/or by what practices do American plays re-humanize compassion for “the other?” Do American plays invite us to recognize “the other” in ourselves? How might empathy, compassion, and humanism help us to ask new questions regarding American theatre’s past, present, and future - such as how American plays refashion Classical ideas about dramatic catharsis? Conversely, panelists might pursue lines of inquiry, Brechtian or otherwise, which ask readers and audiences to consider a politicized theatrical “awakening” as an empathetic act.

MLA 2020: "Early Modern Resilience: Shakespeare and Beyond," Special Session

How does early modern literature portray the resilience of women or other marginalized groups in times of crisis? What strength or power is found in resilience? Is resilience similar to #resist, the experience of domestic violence, or #metoo? How can we understand resilience within feminist criticism, critical race theory, post-colonialism, or other methodologies? How does resilience change our reading (or performance) of a text, and can we begin to theorize the way resilience functions in the early modern world? All texts from the early modern world and all methodologies welcome.